Category Archives: Reviews

Collection of written and video reviews for various items we’ve discovered in this whirlwind adventure called being new parents.

Newborn Diaper Rental

You may have noticed I said in a previous post that one-size (OS) diapers start to fit at 8-10 lbs and wondered what we did before then. Using cloth on a newborn is a whole different ballgame. They’re just so itty bitty! There are pretty much three options- use disposables for a month or two, buy a stash of diapers that are the newborn size, or do a rental. Remembering that we’re admittedly cheap, we basically approached it from a financial perspective, and our initial plan was to use disposables until she fit in OS. I’ve heard that you can do a pretty cheap newborn stash using covers and prefolds or flats, but since we were new to cloth, we weren’t quite ready to start with that level of effort.

MARK SAYS: “We’re cheap and lazy”

But that was when I discovered the rental option. A bunch of cloth diaper stores do them, but we found one for a steal from Itsy Bitsy Bums (IBB in the rest of this post). I looked at a lot of sites’ rental programs, and no one else really comes close on cost, though IBB only has one option for the type of diapers. You could either choose to rent brand new diapers for $295 or used diapers for $195, and keep them for 3 months. Once returned, you either get a $125 refund or $155 store credit for those OS diapers you’d need later. So $40 plus return shipping would diaper our daughter for 3 months. When I looked online, I found you could get a package of 234 Pampers for $47, so as long as we used at least that many changes, we’d break even. I talked to Mark about the change in plans, and ordered the rental when I was about 37 weeks… a little past the 4 weeks in advance they ask for. Then Emily came early, and we of course hadn’t received the rental yet. The customer service at IBB was great, though, and it shipped within a few days of me emailing.

The rental includes 4 Thirsties Duo Wrap covers (with velcro) and 25 Kissaluvs cotton fitteds (snaps). The amount worked pretty well for doing laundry every other day- you alternate between covers unless they get dirty, and just change the fitted inside. The system is pretty friendly for those new to cloth. No need to learn how to do an origami fold or deal with Snappies at 3 am. They fit well when we first got them, but we discovered the problem with snap closures is that sometimes the baby is between snaps. We solved that by occasionally using a Snappi to close the fitted, which looked a little funny, but worked ok. It took a little while to get used to the fact that the fitted would get completely soaked, front and back, inside and outside, but the cover is waterproof so as long as we put it on snugly, we didn’t get leaks. Fitteds were also great at containing runny newborn poop.

Unfortunately, Emily is turning out to be a tall and skinny little girl, and started to outgrow the rise in the fitteds pretty quickly. By 7 weeks, they barely fit, and she was soaking them fast enough that I tried not to leave them on for more than an hour and a half. (Thanks to my baby tracking app, I know we’d gone through over 275 changes, so we did make it past the break even point.) Since we’ll probably have the same issue with any younger siblings, doing a rental next time is TBD. It was certainly worthwhile for a parent with a newborn who has never used cloth, though. The Thirsties covers at least still worked, and we had purchased a few OS diapers that were supposed to fit earlier by that point which helped tide us over.

We did have a few snags ordering our OS replacements. After doing more research and deciding what to spend our credit on, I placed an order in the middle of December, assuming we’d have them by Christmas. We had an assortment of snafus- my sleep-deprived brain ordered the wrong size on the one sized diaper cover I was going to try (luckily I caught it before the order shipped), then they were out of the print I wanted, plus my back up, for the correct size, and the USPS 2 day delivery turned into 4, on top of all of the non-business days for the holidays. While I was frustrated and impatient by the time the diapers arrived on Jan 2 (impatient to get diapers- who’d have thought?), I can’t really fault IBB. Holidays are pretty crazy for retail, and since my earlier experience with them was positive, I’d still shop with them again for brands that aren’t carried by our local store.

Hypnobabies Ho!

Our little hypnobaby!

Yup, I know it sounds crazy (even Mark would agree), but I decided to try using hypnosis when prepping for Emily’s arrival, since I really wanted to avoid an epidural and other interventions. For those of you not in the know, there are two popular systems of hypnosis for childbirth, and after doing some research I ended up ordering the Hypnobabies home study course. One of the questions I had prior to the big day was whether or not it would work- I mean really, they claim you can have a pain-free childbirth, which sounds nuts after seeing all these TV shows of women screaming, crying, and generally being miserable in labor.

Hypnobabies in a Nutshell: It’s a five week program where you listen to CD tracks and practice self-hypnosis cues every day and have readings every week. The readings cover everything from diet (which hopefully you already are handling, since by the time you get to this course, you’re probably already at 30 weeks) to what common interventions are used, with pros and cons. There’s also readings and a CD for the husband/other support- which Mark completely ignored. To give him the benefit of the doubt, Emily did come early, so maybe he would have gotten around to it in the last 2 weeks before I was due. The program changes some of the language of childbirth to avoid the negative connotations we associate with those words- “contractions” become “pressure waves”, etc. I admittedly felt kind of silly referring to pressure waves and my birthing time, and had some trouble with that aspect.

I did the readings and listened to the CD tracks religiously, but I put them on at night and generally fell asleep within minutes. (This is actually pretty common, and they suggest that you make sure you listen to each track at least once while awake so you know what’s on them, but that your subconscious mind will still pick up the suggestions if you do fall asleep.) I will say I had no trouble sleeping when I was pregnant, all the way up until at least week 35, and even then I only woke up occasionally. I like to think that was due to the CDs, but who knows. I wasn’t nearly as good about practicing the cues as I should have been. I work long days and I just had trouble fitting in the time. (Excuses, I know.) I didn’t do any of the practicing with Mark, which I regret because I think it would have helped. Being first time parents, neither of us really knew what to expect, and he ended up basically letting me do my own thing.

Of course, the big question is did it work?

Yes and no, but I take at least some of the blame for the “no”, and definitely plan to use the program for the next kiddo.

  • I was calm throughout my pregnancy and labor from the first day of the course. I felt less stressed about everything, including work. I really think this was the biggest benefit of the program for me. I had no trouble having rational conversations with nurses, I didn’t panic, and the only time I yelled at Mark was when I told him to go get lunch already. Actually, I went into labor at 3:30 am and didn’t wake Mark up until about 7. I was more calm than he was, and I actually felt like I should have labored at home longer. He insisted I call the office at 7:30. (This ended up resulting in me skipping breakfast and going in right away- one of my few regrets. Ladies, eat breakfast. I was starving. I felt like I belonged in a Snickers commercial.)
  • I progressed steadily and had a relatively quick labor for a first time mom, without pitocin or anything else to speed things along. It actually felt even faster than it was- one of the hypnosis suggestions from the program is that every 20 minutes would feel like 5, and that’s pretty accurate. I didn’t get tired.
  • The only real pain I felt during contractions was in my back. (Back labor is not fun.) I’m convinced that if Emily had been positioned better that it might really have been pain-free. It was worst when I was laying down, which was pretty much required for about 20 min/hour for monitoring. I did end up getting an epidural as a result, but that wasn’t until I was at 7 cm, and it only took about an hour from that point until I was at 10, and they turned it off. Honestly, I could have probably gone longer (or avoided entirely), but I was worried about passing the point of no return and then not being able to get one if the back labor got worse. Not really being able to handle laying down didn’t help.
  • I felt about 95% back to normal within 2 weeks.
  • Random observation- one of the things the program has you do is visualize the birth. I had been visualizing going into labor in the morning and the baby being born around 5. In actuality, we went to the hospital around 8 am and Emily was born around 4:30 pm. Next time I’m going to visualize eating breakfast beforehand and the baby being born in time for lunch. 🙂

As I said, I absolutely plan on using the program again next time, so while things weren’t perfect, I still think it was well worth the cost. I actually would recommend everyone use it, even if they plan to get an epidural, just because of how calm I was. The course was worth it for that alone. Plus, my labor looked nothing like what you see on TV- though whether that’s due to Hypnobabies, I’ll never know.